Sony Takahashi: Adopting a Product Portfolio to Push OLED TVs for 8K but Not

Poetry, wine, and work constitute the daily life of Japanese men. Sony CEO Gao Qiaoyang seems no exception. In 2018, the Sony Charisma Tour was held in Chengdu. In the process of releasing information, Takahashi Yang quoted Du Fu's “Spring Rain Rain”: “Have a look at the red and wet places, and spend heavily on the official city.”

This poem, which depicts the joy of Du Fu's joy by depicting the rainy spring rainy season, should also present Gao Qiaoyang's mood at the time. He disclosed such a set of data: “In early February of this year, Sony announced its revenue forecast for fiscal year 2017. The Group is expected to create the best historical performance of 720 billion yen in operating profit throughout the year. The Chinese market undoubtedly played the main theme of Sony's kaige song! In the first half of 2017 alone, Sony's performance in the Chinese market increased by more than 30% year-on-year!"

In 2018, Sony will more actively integrate into the Chinese market. Gao Qiaoyang said that it will seize two major opportunities: First, the construction and enrichment of the Internet and mobile Internet ecosystem; Second, diversification and quality in the process of consumer upgrades. Consumer demand.

Actively integrate into the Chinese Internet ecosystem

As Nigroponte described it, the digitalization of life accelerates throughout the world, and China is undergoing changes from chasers to leaders in this process. The formation of the Internet and mobile Internet ecosystem has reshaped the business landscape. It also reshapes business thinking.

However, the management team of Japanese companies in China still seldom mentions the concept of the Internet and the mobile Internet ecosystem. Hardware and products are still the focus of most of their speeches in China. Sony China is an exception, in the 2018 Sony Charisma At the opening, Gao Qiaoyang said that Sony must better integrate into this circle.

According to Takahashi, integration is a very natural thing. First, it is the need for development. Takahashi here mentions the “soft and hard” product thinking advocated by Akio Morita. For example, color TV business also needs hardware and software, and both content. Manufacturers need to study young fashion crowds to understand what content they see, how they look, and what level of content they occupy in their lives. All these depend on the service platform. This is the environment in which vendors, including Sony, are located. Two years ago, Sony had noticed the need to focus on the content and services provided by the service platform.

The richness of Sony's business line also gives itself better integration. Gao Qiao said that there are various ways of cooperation with the Internet platform: consumer electronics, B2B have projects with Chinese IT companies, such as non-radio TV IT has its own studio and live car, will buy directly Sony's professional equipment; partners' data can be used to guide Sony's marketing efforts and strengthen communication with target users; content produced by partners can be expressed through Sony's products while providing added value to the products. It seems that this is a naturally expressed ecological thinking.

When it comes to positioning in the ecosystem, if one word is used to sum up Takahashi's expression, it is "benefits" because Sony has a clear understanding of its own capabilities. Takahashi has positioned Sony himself as the "last inch" player in the ecosystem. What he emphasized is still Sony's ability in terms of products, whether it is a variety of terminal products or content services such as video, games, and audio. Gao Qiao said that no matter the platform or the content, there is still a hardware product, such as televisions, headphones, and game consoles. Consumers must watch TV with their eyes, listen to players and headphones with their ears, and control the game console with their hands. As long as we use our characteristics here, there will always be a place for Sony in China's Internet ecosystem."

Push the OLED TV with a product portfolio

Whether in the Internet ecosystem or in the Chinese market, Sony's place is naturally inseparable from the television business. Sony's performance in the high-end TV market not only enhanced its performance in the Chinese market, but also continued to solidify its good reputation and brand image. From the perspective of product upgrade, OLED products are the focus of Sony TV business.

In 2017, Sony introduced the OLED A1 series in China. According to Zhong Yikang's data, Sony 2017 relied on the series to account for over 40% of the 75-inch OLED market. In addition to the "black technology" and sincerity of the product itself, Takahashi attributed part of A1's success to the diversified and qualitative consumer demand derived from this round of consumer upgrades. The consumer upgrade is still continuing, and Sony naturally has to make a breakthrough in the popularity of OLED products. Takahashi also bluntly said that although A1 was successful, it was still not high in the proportion of overall sales. Sony set 2017 as the first year of OLED, and it will surely strive for the second year.

However, the popularity of Sony is still not equivalent to low-cost running. Gao Qiaoyang once stated that each brand has its own branding and branding practices. Sony has been in business for more than 70 years. There is a climax and a trough. No change is a sense of responsibility for the brand. Sony never thought of running a brand at low prices, because once the brand image was affected, it took 5-10 times more time and effort to establish it again. Sony's success is through the continuous introduction of high-end products to cater to and meet China's escalating consumer demand, attracting the pursuit of quality of life and young fashion crowd.

In terms of strategy, Sony will still not cater to and obtain more users through low prices, and will not participate in price wars. The reason why the A8F launched this year is more “close to the people” in terms of selling price, which is a comprehensive result of the maturity of technology and the reduction of component costs. In 2018, on the basis of maintaining a healthy profit level, Sony hopes to build a product portfolio with two different designs and different styles of product series, A1 and A8F, and form a joint force to continue to expand the OLED market.

Prepare for 8K but don't advance

In addition to OLEDs, the Group seized market opportunities in the 4K and large-size segments to increase its market demand, and increased the supply of high-value-added products to lead the upgrade of the consumer structure. This is also the background of Sony's overall shrinking in the Chinese TV market in 2017. , An important factor for successful market share growth.

In 4K, BRAVIA X9000F series LCD TV adopts Sony's newly developed Octavia dynamic technology, which can ensure the smooth and clear motion picture without reducing the brightness of the screen. Expectation.

It should be noted that while there is still considerable room for improvement in 4K, 8K products have also been put on the agenda by major manufacturers. After all, in theory, the total number of pixels in 8K resolution is about 16 times that of 1080P (FHD) products. In addition to the details of “Completely visible,” 8K images also allow people to feel the screen level and reproduce the three-dimensional effect. However, 8K still has many problems in the process of content, transmission, decoding, playback, and display. This is also the main reason why 8K has not triggered the market.

Sony also has a layout, but through Takahashi’s description of words, Sony’s strategy is summarized as “prepared, not aggressive”.

Takahashi said that this year's CES Sony has done a corresponding technical display, using the X1 ultimate image processing chip, can achieve 8K image processing capabilities. In terms of image processing, Sony has an advantage. The success of Sony TV over the past two years has prevailed over image quality. Sony is very confident about this. However, from the aspect of product launch, Sony is still observing and observing when the radio and television industry will take a corresponding step, and also pay attention to the development of 4K and 8K content industries. Guangdong has already piloted 4K at the end of last year, and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics may begin the 8K test broadcast. If Sony enters the game, it must be prepared to provide a solution from the content, transmission, decoding, playback to display.

It seems that Sony's strategy is not conservative, but the natural iteration of the pursuit of technology, after all, the terminal first in the television industry is a common practice, the corresponding lack of high-quality content will make the product experience discount, do not have the potential to hurt user expectations The thing, perhaps Sony products "moved" thinking of the meaning of the idea.

Adhering to the high-end and quality, respecting the market and users, not participating in the price war, not playing the concept game, forward-looking and pragmatic, should be the key to Sony's road to recovery in recent years. Sony's business ideas of natural integration of market environment, advancement of technological innovation, and “touching” users with high-quality products are still worthy of serious study by Chinese brands.